The Imbalance Sheet: Mythmongering

The Twins are falling, and therefore, so is the sky, according to those who
drink heavily at the fountain of MLB swill. It’s no surprise that one of the
first cries showed up on MLB’s own site. Mike Bauman, apparently just
purchased from Jim Henson Productions,
issued
a typically opinion-laden, fact-free piece last week
stating that the Twins’ collapse was evidence that baseball’s entire economic
system is b0rked.
Here’s the introduction to his article:

The only problem with the first-half success of the Minnesota Twins was that
some people used it to make a point. And the point simply was not correct.

The argument was that the performance of the Twins, with the lowest player
payroll in the Major Leagues, at less than $25 million, proved that economic
disparity was not really that large of a deal.

If the Twins could compete at this level, the argument went, then the whole
idea that baseball’s economic structure was fundamentally flawed was itself
fundamentally flawed.

The problem with Bauman’s article is that he spends the entire time arguing
that the Twins’ early success proved nothing without addressing what the
Twins’ success meant, and without proving his thesis that baseball’s
economic structure is broken.

That the Twins had a hot start above all expectations is undeniable. The
Twins went 18-6 in April and 55-32 before the All-Star break, riding their
strong and not terribly expensive starting pitching (aside from Brad
Radke, who was overpaid in a bid to keep someone else from overpaying
him even more) into first place. Getting 55 wins by the All-Star break
should, in most scenarios, put a team above the .500 mark for the
season–even if the team loses 30 of its next 44 games, as the Twins have.
If they manage to win just 13 of their remaining 31 games, they’ll finish
above .500; in the age of the wild card, that’s the fringes of contention.
So Bauman’s basic contention that the Twins are struggling just as a
small-market team should is flawed.

But someone needs to say that the Twins did not prove that economic
disparity is not a continuing crisis for baseball. The proof came when,
shortly after the All-Star break, the Twins lost shortstop Cristian
Guzman with shoulder inflammation.

And the thing is, they had no adequate replacement. This is exactly the kind
of thing that separates the small-market franchise from the large-market
franchise.

Bauman is now arguing that
the loss of one player,
and the Twins’ inability
to replace him, was the cause of the Twins’ demise, and that the Twins’
inability to afford a decent $200,000 backup infielder is proof that they
can’t afford to compete. Given that the Twins already had a shortstop
(Luis Rivas, their second baseman) available, all the Twins had to do
was find an adequate second baseman who might come close to the
.308/.347/.508 Guzman posted before the All-Star break. And backup second
basemen who can hit are the very definition of replaceable talent.

Bauman goes completely over the edge towards the end of his piece:

The current game operates on two economic axioms: The first is that if you
don’t spend money, you can’t win. The second is that even if you do spend
money, there is no guarantee of success.

Bauman’s second point is accurate, but the first isn’t. He never mentions
the A’s or the Giants in his article, even though both teams have won in
2000 and 2001 without breaking the bank. The White Sox and Marlins are both
hanging around .500 with small payrolls as well. And the Twins, of course,
have perhaps the best win-to-payroll ratio of any team this year.